Fun Facts

I tried to finagle my way into doing the children's books today, but unfortunately Madame Villon is really hankering to get the nonfiction done. You know what? It's BORING. I liked the fiction pretty much straight through (even though the sci-fi got a little repetitive near the end) but this stuff is old. And useless. Literally, useless - around a dozen books in a row had to deal with computer operating systems of the early '80's. Plus they're huge books, and ancient, so I have to worry about breaking one in half every time I flip to the last page. Interestingly, one of the bibliographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald was from the University of Pittsburgh bibliography series, and another philosophy book was printed by Penn State.

There was a plentitude of topics that I covered in two hours, ranging from paranormal happenings to group therapy to Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten to Freud. A veritable hodgepodge.

Of course, I always find stuff that I want to read. Today's catch: Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts. So far, it's very good. Did you know . . .

Though they were only five and three years old, Susan and Deborah Tripp, two sisters in the U.S. in 1829, weighed 205 and 124 pounds, respectively.

Thomas Alva Edison's first attempt at marketing an invention was an offer of a new stock ticker he had devised to the president of a large Wall Street firm. Edison wanted to ask $5,000, but he was only twenty-three and completely inexperienced, and his nerve failed him. He asked the president to make an offer, and the president offered $40,000. Edison learned the lesson of not asking too little, and that was probably more valuable to him than this particular sum.

I happened upon this clip yesterday and couldn't stop laughing. The arm-wrestling isn't important; just watch the song part. I must have played it twenty times.

Walking past the Diagonale Campus movie theater today, I stopped in my tracks and just stared at one of their movie posters. It featured an Asian girl with tattoos fully nude. Just, like, out there. And it was a huge poster! No one else really seemed to care, but I got a picture, to be sure.